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Cuttlefish -> RE: Small Ship, Big War (3/13/2008 2:10:00 AM)
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November 28, 1943
Location: Kwajalein
Course: None
Attached to: Disbanded in port
Mission: None
System Damage: 1
Float Damage: 0
Fires: 0
Fuel: 475
Orders: Await further orders
---
“What are you going to do when the war is over?” Oizuma asks Shiro. The two are atop the deckhouse, where Shiro is tightening the backstays on the aft mast. Oizuma is helping by standing around and trying to look busy.
Of all the topics discussed by Hibiki’s crew this one is the most enduringly popular. Women, the shortcomings of officers, politics, rumors about the war, all these subjects come up frequently. Again and again, however, the men return to “what are you going to do when the war is over?” After nearly two years of war there would seem to be little more to say on the subject, but still the question gets asked. It reminds the men, perhaps, that the war will not last forever and that someday, if they are spared, they will return to Japan and the lives and people they left behind.
Shiro wrestles with a recalcitrant turnbuckle a moment before answering. “Go home to Tendo and become a carpenter,” he says. “I’d like to get married, too, and have a family.”
“Do you have anyone waiting for you?” Oizuma asks.
Shiro shakes his head. “My brother had a match arranged – her name was Yukiko, she was very pretty – but I could not get home and she ended up marrying someone else,” he says. “But there will be time to find someone, once the war ends.” He pauses. “I might still write that book someday, too.”
“If you do make sure to put Benzaiten in it,” Oizuma says. Shiro smiles.
“I could not tell our story without mentioning her,” he says. “What about you, Oizuma?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps I will study and try to pass the entrance examinations and attend a university.”
“Really?” says Shiro. “I did not know you had such ambitions.”
“I didn’t,” says Oizuma. “But now I am thinking perhaps of studying biology. Perhaps I will become the foremost herpetologist in all Japan!”
“Herpetologist?” asks Shiro.
“One who studies reptiles and amphibians,” Oizuma says.
“Ah,” says Shiro. “That is an interesting goal. I think you would be good at it.”
“We will see,” says Oizuma. “If we get home.”
“We will get home, someday,” says Shiro.
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Tendo, present day:
Shiro Kuramata sits in the garden and enjoys the spring sunshine. He is in his favorite rocking chair, one he made himself many years ago. There is a blanket over his legs, for it is still March and despite the sunshine the chill of winter is not entirely gone.
Perhaps later he will go into his workshop and put the finishing touches on the dresser he is making for one of his great-grandchildren. Despite being eighty-eight years old he still likes to keep busy. But he tires easily and for the moment it is pleasant just to sit in the sunshine.
He dozes off and slips into a dream. In the dream he is back aboard Hibiki. He has such dreams from time to time. Not all of them are unpleasant, though from some of them he awakens with his heart pounding. In this dream he is talking to Snake Man. What was his real name? Oizuma, yes, that was it.
He is awakened a short time later by voices.
“I still don’t get it,” someone says. “Why would we ever fight America?”
“We did, though,” says another voice. “I have great-grandfather’s book right here. It’s amazing.”
Shiro opens his eyes and sees someone standing in front of him. “Oizuma?” he says, disoriented.
“No, great-grandfather, it is Jomei,” one of them says gently. Shiro focuses and comes back to the present. Before him are two teenage boys. Jomei is 15 and his cousin Minoru is a couple of years younger. They are wearing blue jeans and t-shirts. Shiro can read the English words on Jomei’s t-shirt, but he has no idea what “Aperture Laboratories” and “The cake is a lie” means. Jomei is holding some sort of small electronic device.
“Our apologies for disturbing your rest, great-grandfather,” says Jomei. “My father told me about your book last week and I downloaded it and read it.” He holds up the device, which is about the size of Shiro’s wallet. How a book could get in there Shiro has no idea. “May we ask you some questions?”
“Would you tell us more about the war?” asks Minoru. “What happened? What did you do?”
Shiro looks around at the garden he helped build and that four generations of his family have enjoyed. Then he looks at the boys in front of him.
“I spent a lot of time wishing I was right here,” he says, and his deeply lined face wrinkles into a large smile.
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